Originally Posted by
Unregistered
First of all, every politician in Broward County KNEW that the BCSB could not afford to provide adequate security to stop a mass school shooter in all of its 241 schools, let alone the 89 charter schools under its umbrella. It would cost far more than $17 million dollars to set-up such security, let alone maintain it year after year. The BCSS requires its teachers to pay for their own teaching supplies and for the students to have their own toilet paper. There was no way the BCSB was going to spend the money to safeguard the schools against such a low possibility threat as a mass school shooter. But, the parents and the media wanted to blame some person in a position of responsibility for the incident. The Sheriff, became the face of the defense for the rest of the political machine, especially the BCSB. However, when the brouhaha failed to quiet down, the rest of the politicians did not hesitate to throw him off the sleigh to appease the wolves. What you are criticizing the Sheriff for is loyalty, not cowardice. No recriminations were going to bring back the dead. Mass school shootings are only slightly more common than terrorists flying airplanes into buildings. And, even after 9/11 we did not put AAA emplacements around building is the US. We just take our chances.
Sorry, but Columbine has been forgotten. So has Sandy Hook. And so has VT and a dozen other schools which have seen similar attacks over the last two decades. People would rather feel that no threat exists rather than to take steps to eliminate that threat. And, such steps would be very expensive. And, except for the parents of the slain and injured, the populace of Broward County has largely forgotten about the MSDHS shooting as well. They DO NOT want to be reminded of it. When the shooter was arrested and the Sheriff suspended [because it was all his fault you know] everything went back to the status quo.
As for securing the 241 public and 89 charter schools, in Broward County [the 6th largest school system in the nation], against a mass school shooter, how much do you think that will cost? The initial cost of effectively securing the schools will be much greater than $17 million. and the year-to-year ongoing costs to maintain it will be just as high. In order to effective safeguard a school against armed intrusion, the perimeter has to be secured to eliminate entry at other than monitored points of entry. Each point of entry has to have at least one armed guard and several other people to screen those entering the campus as well as their equipment. Then you have to have several more armed guards to interdict a person attempting to use force to enter the campus. This requires personnel, equipment, a high level of initial training and regular on-going training. And the personnel have too be free to engage the attacker before he reaches people on the campus. Once the fox is in the hen house, you are going to lose chickens. And, the standards set by the MSDHS Security Act, and enacted by the BCSB, are virtually identical to those in place at MSDHS [one armed security guard] on the day of the shooting.
Response time is all well and good. But, it does not prevent the intrusion and subsequent death and injury from occurring. At MSDHS, the first off-campus responder was on-scene in about 1.5 minutes after the shooting was reported. Three other deputies were on-scene in approximately 3 minutes after the shooting was reported. And, 2 minutes later the shooter was leaving the campus. Four LEOs on-scene in 3 minutes is pretty darn good response. Of course, they had no idea as to exactly what they were responding to, except that it was shots being fired inside a school building, or on the football field. There was some confusion there, as there always is in these situations. So, bu the time the units were on-scene and they had staged [which was not done in this case] the shooter would have been headed out the back anyway, leaving 17 dead and 17 wounded.
As to what the PUBLIC expects, there is a reason why we do not allow the public to command our military in time of war and to tell LEOs how to do their jobs. We do not allow the untrained public to do brain surgery or fly airplanes, either. Once you allow the PUBLIC to dictate how these jobs are done, everything falls apart. And, as most LEOs learn quickly, every Tom, **** and Harriet believes that they can do our job better than we can. And, of course, the media is simply clueless and always has been. As you note, the PERCEPTION of reality [safety in this case] is more important that REALITY. People do not want to think that any threat exists. So, it much more convenient to ignore the threat and then blame it all on the Sheriff, if that threat materializes. Even if the Sheriff is not responsible for countering the threat to begin with.
So, if you want to see a politician elected based upon lies then you get what you deserve. Scott Israel may not be thee best candidate for Sheriff. But it is insane to base his election on the MSDHS shooting, just as it was insane to base his suspension on that incident.